Mr. Eddie Downey:

On the subject of cattle wandering home, there was an alert because a neighbour had lost the header of his combine and thought it was stolen, but it turned out that another neighbour had put it into a shed to keep it dry for him. There are good neighbours as well.

Forty-eight cases of cattle rustling were reported. In one case, 100 cattle were stolen in Westmeath. It is not that the numbers are huge but it is the potential damage this can do to the industry, including the traceability system. Livestock theft can wipe out individual farm incomes.

The other question was where these animals go. They do not all go to the one place, so there have to be multiple destinations. Some of them are finished cattle that can go to certain places, but others are not. We have to figure out where these are going and what criminals are involved. Some of those criminals must have knowledge of how to deal with animals because not just anybody can walk into a field, load them and move them on. There are groups of people involved in this and we need to break that down.

There was no insurance for cattle theft until 18 months or two years ago. FBD Insurance has stepped into that space now, so insurance is available for farmers. That is not the way we want to go, however. We want to get to the stage where cattle theft is not profitable.